


never stop until the grave

by Naraht



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Aging, Established Relationship, M/M, Saint Petersburg, Set after S1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-14 08:21:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9170587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naraht/pseuds/Naraht
Summary: Back in St Petersburg, Victor attempts to combine coaching Yuuri with preparing for his own return to competition. The spirit is willing but the flesh may be weak.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [【授权翻译】never stop until the grave](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10780782) by [JulianTurnin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulianTurnin/pseuds/JulianTurnin)



> This fic contains minor injuries and mentions of disordered eating.

_"What worries me though, is that after all those victories people don't see me as a human being anymore. I am not a machine. I have a heart beating in my chest, not an engine. There's blood in my veins, not oil. I know pain and fatigue. I can lose but I will strive to win everything."_

_– Evgeni Plushenko_

***

"It's gorgeous," Yuuri said, looking around the sleek, Scandinavian interior of Victor's small apartment, still holding the handle of his suitcase. "I've seen it in magazines, of course, but I never–"

Victor shrugged. He had bought the place when he was eighteen, back when property prices had been a lot lower, on the winnings from two seasons as a senior and the first of his endorsements. He'd bought it outright and been thoroughly impressed with himself for months afterwards.

Now he could afford much better, of course. A modern penthouse in the Central District, a summer _dacha_ on the coast which he would never have time to visit. People – models, the sons and daughters of oligarchs, the sort of people one picked up in nightclubs – asked him why he didn't move somewhere more fashionable than Vasilyevsky Island. But he hadn't chosen so badly, for a teenager who knew nothing except skating. He liked the big windows, the view of the Neva. He liked being able to walk to his home rink. Once upon a time he'd liked the fact that he could see the sports complex from his apartment, rebuking him from across the river if he ever found himself tempted to shirk his training.

"I had it redecorated a few years ago. Denis Krasikov. He did a good job." He glanced around, though he hardly needed to remind himself. "Though I was thinking it's overdue for a new colour scheme. It's rather bleak."

Expanses of white and silver and pale blue, all the appliances in gunmetal grey. It had echoed the style of his skating season and at the time he had thought it rather sophisticated. Last winter, after the Grand Prix Final, in the depths of the St Petersburg winter, it had come close to sapping his will to live. To be fair, even then, he had realised that this was not really the fault of the decor. Installing a few more lights had helped. A little.

"I don't think it's bleak at all," Yuuri insisted. "It's very – like you."

"It's not now," he said. "Not anymore. Here, it's already midnight. Let me show you the bedroom."

***

A month would not have been too long to show Yuuri around St Petersburg. All of the clichéd tourist spots – the Hermitage, the Peter and Paul Fortress, Peterhof, the Church on Spilled Blood. A day trip to Kronstadt to admire the sailors. Even in the depths of a Russian winter, with eighteen hours of darkness a day, there would have been things to see. All of Victor's favourite restaurants and cafés could have occupied them for a week at least.

A month would not have been too long to settle in together at home with his new fiancé. After so long away, Victor's apartment seemed strange and sterile to him, merely a hotel more familiar than others. He had never lived with another person; his lovers had rarely stayed beyond the morning.

Jetlagged, Yuuri slept into the afternoon. Then Victor showed him the things that he would have showed any other lover: where to find the towels; how to use the espresso machine; the fact that there was nothing in the refrigerator, and that therefore they would have to go out in search of food.

After a late lunch, the sun was already sinking down over the city. They went back to the apartment and watched a couple of episodes of something forgettable on Netflix. Yuuri's head sagged towards Victor's shoulder; Victor tucked a blanket around him.

 _Welcome home,_ he wanted to say. _This is your home now, too. Our home together._

He would say it when he believed it.

Tomorrow they would both be back on the ice.

***

Crossing the Tuchkov bridge hours before dawn, still half asleep, sports bag slung over one shoulder. Fighting the buffeting wind, leaping from one foot to the other to test his balance. Fumbling for his key card at the door and waiting for the temperamental lock to go green. All of this was familiar. Only now he had Yuuri by his side.

"I always hoped that someday I would get the chance to skate here," Yuuri said, following him into the darkened hallway.

Victor fumbled for the lights. "Here? The ice used to be terrible, you have no idea."

"You trained here," said Yuuri simply.

"You are a flatterer," said Victor, and kissed him behind the ear.

In the locker rooms Victor took a deep breath, taking into his lungs the mingled scent of bleach, musty tiles and old skate liners. A universal cocktail, one might think, but even with his eyes closed he would have known Yubileyny Sports Palace. Something expanded in his chest, a tightness of which he had not even been aware.

Victor spread his arms wide. "Welcome home, Yuuri!"

***

Returning to Yubileyny Sport Club was rather like a walrus swim in the Neva: a sudden dive into the icy waters of elite Russian athletics. Victor's first morning back was filled with a round of appointments: the sports doctor, the physiotherapist, the nutritionist. All of them gave him the bored, unimpressed Soviet functionary routine – twenty-five years out of date – but he could tell that deep down they were pleased to have him back in St Petersburg. The conclusion: no aggravation of old injuries, a small but unacceptable decrease in VO2 max, a generally clean bill of health.

Studying the list of blood tests to be run, Victor wondered whether Yakov required a regular STD panel for all his athletes, or whether it was just him. Perhaps he would ask Georgi. Perhaps not; it would only spark another woeful tirade about 'that slut Anya.'

The physio noted a distinct decrease in flexibility. She – clearly a sadist, and not the sort of sadist that Victor got on with – had frowned at him disapprovingly as she asked him to contort him into a series of increasingly outrageous stretches that had probably come out of a manual of sex positions. (Had it hurt so much last time? Surely it always hurt.)

Finally: he was nearly five kilos above his competition weight. Well, it hardly required a top sports doctor to tell him that. He had been perfectly aware. It was not so much of an issue; he wasn't Yagudin. It was just that time was rather short.

"I would ban you from the ice for two weeks," grumbled Yakov, watching Victor taking off his skate guards, "if it weren't for the fact that Nationals are in two weeks. What were you thinking?"

Victor favoured Yakov with the airheaded smile that he saved for serious discussions with his coach. "Clearly I wasn't. I was enjoying myself."

Both of them knew that the correct answer was _I fell in love_ , but this was neither the time nor the place for that conversation. He suspected that Yakov found it simpler to think of him as a sex-obsessed playboy with no impulse control. Which was fine.

Yakov grunted. "And don't you dare to claim that you've been training. I know what you call training: _ice dancing_. You chose to risk your back doing lifts, without any coaching, for an _exhibition skate_? When you weren't even competing? Are you fifteen, Victor? Yura has more sense than that."

Again: _I fell in love_. Or perhaps, _I was planning to retire permanently, so it seemed like a good idea when I thought it up_. Still not the time though.

"Just promise me," Yakov continued, "that you won't do anything stupid and injure yourself."

Victor fluttered his eyelashes at Yakov. "Have I ever?"

Another grunt. The broken collarbone at fourteen, the torn meniscus at twenty, the back surgery only two years ago. But none of those had been the result of doing anything stupid, so they hardly counted.

"Get skating. Warm up. But no jumps until I tell you. I'll be watching you, Vitya."

Victor pushed back from the wall, letting his momentum carry him onwards. Then he aimed a gesture at Yakov, the opening flourish of _Stammi Vicino_ , and skated off.

_He's glad I came back. He's forgiven me. He still loves me best._

The thought made him so happy that he forgot himself and did a triple toe loop a few minutes later. The resulting irate shouting from the sidelines warmed his heart.

***

Despite his gruff exterior, Yakov clearly was a romantic soul at heart, for he sent Victor and Yuuri home a full two hours early. Together they walked back across the bridge by the light of an early twilight. The sky to the southwest, over Vasilyevsky Island, was shaded from the palest yellow through to sea green, into the deep blue of a winter night sequined with stars. _It would,_ thought Victor, _make the most beautiful costume._

He linked arms with Yuuri. Through his wool coat he could sense the faintest suggestion of body heat. He pressed closer, soaking it in. "So, Yuuri, what do you think of the Russian training?"

Yuuri turned to look at him, his head silhouetted in the dim light. "Very good!"

"Very rigorous, very firm... very Russian. Different than Detroit?"

"It's – it's only been a day. I don't think I can say yet – "

Victor wondered what on earth he had been expecting, whether he ought to apologise for trying to tempt Yuuri into disloyalty. Celestino, for all his failure to manage Yuuri's anxiety, was a good coach and a good man. Nonetheless Victor could not help but feel a certain pride in the system in which he had been trained. No doubt whatever they did in America, whatever that might be, was perfectly good; but in Russia things were done without compromise.

The fruit of their first day at Yubileyny Sport Club was a heavy folder of papers for each of them to take home. Medical results, nutrition plan, weekly schedule. Swimming, weightlifting, bodyweight exercises, ballet, physiotherapy, massage... ice time. One would think that the ice time was an afterthought; it was not so easy to come by as it had been in Hasetsu. But then it was only one part of a thorough, scientifically managed training plan.

 _It wasn't the way I organised things in Hasetsu,_ thought Victor with a nagging sense of guilt. _But then I gave him all my time, all my attention. Perhaps that was enough._

He drew Yuuri even closer, kissed him on the cheek. Headlights of passing cars slid by, gold spotlights against the dark blue. A car horn honked; nothing to do with them, no doubt, someone trying to merge.

"I only want you to be happy here," said Victor.

Yuuri's warm breath made a cloud of fog around them. "I would be happy wherever you are."

***

"We forgot to get anything to cook for dinner," said Yuuri, taking a seat on the sofa and extracting his training schedule from his bag.

 _I got apples yesterday,_ thought Victor, who rarely bothered keeping anything in the refrigerator during the training season. He doubted that this would make any sense to Yuuri.

Victor stood in the doorway, slowly brushing the snow off the shoulders of his coat while he gazed at his fiancé. Yuuri was bent over his papers, studying them as if there would be a test in the morning. His dark hair, now grown out over his ears, was flattened into messy strands by the hat he had worn. He still wore his Japan warm-up jacket, unzipped, slightly oversized. He was beautiful, breathtaking, incongruously real amidst the sterile lines of Victor's apartment. Victor rubbed the balls of his hands into his eyes, and saw stars. He opened his eyes again, and saw Yuuri. It was the same thing.

Finally Yuuri looked up, clearly feeling the weight of Victor's scrutiny. Light glinted off his still-fogged glasses. "Am I in your way? Is it all right if I sit here?"

"Sit wherever you like, this is your home now."

His expansive gesture of welcome, with perfect accompanying pique turn, were lost on Yuuri, who had returned to studying his training plan. Although it was printed in Cyrillic, some kind soul had written out an English translation in pen. Now Yuuri was annotating it with additional kanji.

"Oh, don't take those too seriously," said Victor impatiently. "They give you a new one every month. Otherwise we would begin to wonder why we pay them."

He sat down beside Yuuri and plucked the offending papers out of his hand. He disliked the thought of someone else planning Yuuri's day for him. He wondered how much their schedules overlapped, whether anyone had bothered to think about that. He would have to have a word.

"Yakov seems to think that he's my coach now," said Yuuri. "I mean, his English isn't very good, but he's acting like he is..."

Yakov Feltsman was many things, but a presumptuous man he was not. Victor had sat down with him in Barcelona after the Grand Prix Final and signed two different coaching contracts. _Viktor Vasilievich Nikiforov, Katsuki Yuuri._ Both effective from the beginning of the current competition season, with full fees payable immediately. 

It was Victor's peace offering to Yakov. He had rung his bank the following morning to have them wire the money, begrudging Yakov nothing. A few more ice shows in the summer ought to cover it, although he had long ago stopped noticing or caring exactly how much they paid.

All that worried him now was whether Yuuri would understand all this. And when and how, exactly, he should explain it.

"Only to keep you from being neglected while I'm preparing for Nationals," he said, kissing Yuuri's ear in explanation.

 _And Europeans, and then Worlds..._ continued an unhelpful voice in his head.

Glancing at his own training schedule, he had only noted the omissions: no _coaching Yuuri_ , no _choreographing Yuuri's routines_ , no _commissioning Yuuri's costumes_ , no _washing Yuuri's feet_. Certainly no _styling Yuuri's hair before competitions even though Yuuri is perfectly capable with a comb_. Nothing mentioning Yuuri's name at all. 

They would share ice time, naturally – most of Yakov's students did, although Victor occasionally rated his own private sessions – but Victor would be practicing his own routines, hardly be able to spare the time to spot someone else. 

In the afterglow of the Grand Prix Final, the idea of coaching and competing simultaneously had seemed... not easy, precisely, but doable with hard work. Anything worth doing took hard work, and Victor was an optimist by nature. Kneeling on the floor rinkside, with Yuuri straddling his lap, he had been certain that he could make it work. Only now he could not remember exactly how he had intended to do it.

Sighing, Victor lay down on the sofa, putting his head in Yuuri's lap.

"Are you worried?" asked Yuuri, ruffling a hand absentmindedly through Victor's hair.

"About nationals?" said Victor, choosing the simplest possible interpretation of Yuuri's words. "Of course not. I don't even have to be good. I only have to be – not terrible. There is such a thing as loyalty. They wouldn't dare to pass me over for the Euros. And by then I will be ready."

Yuuri blushed, biting his lip, as if he were ashamed to have even asked the question. As if he had suddenly remembered that a living legend's cheek was pressed against his thigh, or that he was the one who, for eight long months, had succeded in taking Victor from the world.

"And you're ready now," added Victor. "You'll be stunning. Minami won't know what's hit him."

"Please don't say that," said Yuuri, but his objection lacked its usual terror. It sounded, thought Victor with pleasure, almost _pro forma_ , as Yuuri thought he would probably win.

"And then, when you come home, I'll kiss it."

If he had turned his head to his left, leaned forward a few inches, he could have mouthed Yuuri's cock through the heavy cotton of his tracksuit bottoms. Instead he turned to the right and kissed Yuuri's knee, wringing a gasp and a little jump from him.

"My knee?" said Yuuri, a tone of trembling delight.

Victor lay back and looked up at his lover. "It has more to do with success on the ice than your cock, I think. Though who knows."

Together they broke down into helpless laughter.

"I wondered," Yuuri began, his eyes shining a little. "You said there was a Japanese restaurant near here that you wanted me to try. Would you like to go tonight? In honor of being here in St Petersburg."

For a moment Victor said nothing.

"Not – not katsudon," said Yuuri hurriedly. "I wouldn't! But sushi? I'm allowed fish, I think, maybe even rice..."

He leaned over to rummage on the floor for the pages of his discarded nutritional plan. Briefly, gloriously, Victor was trapped against Yuuri's chest, smelling damp wool and shower gel and a hint of cologne. But the moment ended too quickly.

"I'm not," said Victor finally. "Not for dinner."

It was, strictly speaking, a lie. But Yuuri could not read Russian, so the truth would hardly out. Victor followed his own counsel, whatever his nutritionist might say. 

"Oh – you have a meal plan too! Of course you do! What was I thinking?" 

It was difficult, thought Victor, to live with a man while remaining his idol as well. Perhaps impossible. Eventually one revealed the work that went into being a god.

He smiled, as broadly as he could manage. "Only an apple for dinner until nationals. Just to get back into training. It's the simplest way."

"Is this a Russian thing?" asked Yuuri, baffled.

 _No wonder he has such trouble keeping his weight down,_ thought Victor. _He has no sense of self-denial._

"Yes, we're a very peculiar people," he said, deadpan. "In particular we have a belief in apples."

He gestured towards the wooden bowl on the counter, piled high with green _Antonovkas_. Yuuri must have thought that they were there for decoration.

That night his stomach grumbled so loudly that he thought it must be keeping Yuuri awake. It certainly was keeping him awake. But he was a realist, and an athlete – and in a choice between his knees and his stomach, he would choose his knees every time.

***

"There's no room on this schedule," said Victor, "for me to coach Yuuri. It's a problem."

Taking a seat on the corner of Yakov's desk, he swung his legs to see how it looked.

Yakov looked up from a thick pile of paperwork. For a moment he studied Victor from beneath his heavy eyebrows, then huffed out an annoyed sigh and returned to his papers. Victor studied the top sheet from upside down: _Therapeutic Use Exemption... Georgi Popovich..._

"That's because it's impossible for you to coach Yuuri," he said curtly, refusing to meet Victor's gaze again. Clearly he was hoping that Victor would get bored and go away. "There aren't enough hours in the day."

"They said it was impossible to win five World Championships in a row."

A glance, but only to shake his head dismissively. "That act became old a long time ago."

"I'll just have to make it six," said Victor, for the sake of something to say. Even he knew that it was a weak rejoinder.

Yakov raised his voice. "How do you expect to do that when you're not fully committed to your own success? When you're competing against the man you've promised to help to victory? Do you want to win gold or not?"

Rooting around in his overstuffed drawers, Yakov produced a piece of paper and waved it in Victor's face. "This is the contract engaging me to coach Katsuki Yuuri. You signed it yourself. I am his coach now. Who are you?" He shook the paper, his face growing redder by the minute. "Do you have a contract with him? Victor, have you _ever_ had a contract with him?"

"I swore to him that I would stay on as his coach. He needs me. We have an understanding."

"You have sex. Sex is not an understanding, as I learned the hard way from Lilia Baranovskaya. Not even a marriage license binds you forever."

There was nothing one could say to that. It was true.

"Victor Vasilievich Nikiforov, listen to me. A good coach, a coach who puts the well being of his athletes above his own carnal desires, a coach with even the most tenuous grasp of professional ethics... _does not... fuck... his athletes_!"

"Ouch," said Victor quietly. "Is that what you think of me, Yakov?"

It was not as if he hadn't asked himself whether he was doing the wrong thing, those early weeks in Hasetsu when Yuuri had recoiled from his every touch as if Victor's fingertips could burn him. He had lain on his futon, alone in an expanse of _tatami_ , surrounded by the silent reproach of his still-boxed possessions, wondering why on earth he had come, wondering whether Yuuri even wanted him there.

He had tried to discipline himself. He had told himself that he was willing to be whatever Yuuri needed him to be, whether father, friend or lover. For a long while it had seemed that even Yuuri himself was not sure what that meant. And then it had felt so natural, so right, that he had ceased to ask himself whether it was.

"No. I forgive you, Vitenka, in spite of all of that, because you never have been his coach. Not really. From the start I said that you were playing at coaching. Somehow you hypnotised the man into believing that you could _fuck_ talent into him. And the maddest thing is that it worked!" He threw his hands disbelievingly in the air. "But, Victor Vasilievich, that is not coaching. You are the Rasputin of figure skating."

It was almost a compliment. And yet it was so wrong.

"Actually it was the other way around," said Victor. "He already had talent. I was hoping that he could fuck motivation into me. And he succeeded."

"Yes, very good. Very touching. And now you're back. So be back."

"I can't choose. You'll kill me if you ask me to choose. It will tear me apart."

Yakov scoffed, uncomfortable. "You're stronger than that."

"No," said Victor Nikiforov, the living legend. Something caught in his throat. "I'm not."

Unwillingly his mind returned him to a hotel room in Barcelona. The implacable chill of the plate glass window against his back. The dampness of his hair, straight from the shower. And the tentative, curious way that Yuuri had touched him, as if until that moment he had not truly believed that Victor Nikiforov could feel pain. 

They had agreed to make their decisions after the final. Victor had lain awake for most of the night, alone in his bed, weeping silently. And then, afterwards, by the rink, caught up with sudden joy, he had pledged Yuuri both his body and his soul. Skating and coaching together.

Gold rings and an engagement meant nothing compared to this. Not even the cruelest of lovers could have demanded a more severe act of service. No discipline could be more demanding than that of skating. No wonder that Victor, in the end, was always drawn back. To Yuuri and to skating both.

Tears rolling down his cheeks, Victor leaned forwards and wordlessly threw his arms around his coach.

"Vitya," said Yakov, that gruff tone that meant he was truly moved. "Vitenka, stop this, my foolish boy. You're worse than Georgi. How do you get yourself into these messes?"

He thumped Victor awkwardly on the back, but for a long time he did not pull away.

"Here," he said finally, pushing Victor upright. He rummaged in his pockets and found a handkerchief. "Dry your eyes. And be certain to drink some water afterwards, I don't want you dehydrated."

Victor sniffed, tossed his hair out of his eyes, and dabbed at his nose with one of the cleaner corners of the handkerchief.

Yakov sighed. "What time is your first workout?"

"Nine a.m. Both of us."

"If you both come in at seven..."

"Yuuri is not so good in the mornings."

Yakov sighed even more loudly. "If _you_ come to me at seven, then, you can have an hour and a half to coach him in the afternoon. Whatever that may involve."

"Thank you, Yakov." Victor hugged him again. "I knew you would think of something. You always do."

"Another sex tape would have been simpler than this. You'll be the death of me yet. Go, clean yourself up. You'll be keeping the physio waiting."

As Victor made his way to the door, he could hear Yakov muttering to himself: "I've never even been _tempted_ to fuck one of my athletes because all of my athletes are _idiots_."

"I love you too, Yakov," said Victor, and made his exit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • The title of this story is borrowed from [this fanvid](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT0cjU_6aSQ) (loud!) of Evgeni Plushenko's practice sessions. Personally I'm exhausted just watching it.  
> • Victor's apartment is [as designed by Denis Krasikov](http://architectism.com/scandinavian-apartment-murmansk-denis-krasikov/)  
> • Victor's apple diet is a less extreme version of Evgeni Plushenko's preparation for the 2010 Olympics. I don't mean to suggest an actual eating disorder here, but athletes don't do things by halves.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Scriva and the others who pointed out the sad lack of Makkachin in chapter one. To be honest, I am a cat person, and not being confident in the quality of my poodle characterisation I had simply decided not to mention him. However in retrospect I agree that this is a major omission! 
> 
> My theory is that Victor and Yuuri came straight to St Petersburg from Barcelona (not willing to sacrifice a day of Victor's fortnight to prepare for Russian nationals), and therefore that Makkachin is still back in Japan.

A week after Victor moved back to St Petersburg, Yuri landed his first quadruple axel.

Victor had, truth be told, never noticed that Yuri was working on it in the first place. He had been too busy reminding his body that he was the World Champion. He had lost none of his skills, none of his knowledge. His intuitive sense of the possibilities was as alive as ever. And yet, in that minute gap between conception and execution, a brief millisecond which he had never before noticed, his body now possessed the independence and the will to fail him.

A week of one-legged squats and weighted sit-ups and torturous barre work. A week of hammering out quad flips and loops, until his teeth jarred and pain shot through his knees with every successful landing. Not all of them successful; he fell enough times to cover his skin with a map of bruises stretching from thigh to shoulder. A week of trying and failing to resurrect the elegance of his Biellman spiral until he finally accepted that the last necessary ounce of flexibility, preserved and fading since his teenage years, had finally gone for good. A butterfly on the wing.

"If your skate isn't over your head," shouted Yakov, "it isn't a Biellman! Don't waste your time, Vitya."

"It's very close," said Victor, and smiled away his pique. He did not think it was close at all.

Laughing, Mila skated past, tugging her foot up into a parody of his pose. Her free leg was bent all at right angles, one arm bent back to catch – barely – at her shoulder-height skate. With her other hand she clasped at her elbow. Once she was certain that he was looking, her posture changed. She flexed herself into a hyperextended version of the same pose, both arms outstretched to meet her skate far above her head. She looked as though she might snap herself in half at the waist.

"Very good, Mila," said Georgi. "Now show him your quad jumps."

"Now get back to work!" shouted Yakov.

Victor had never stopped working. When he was on the rink, when he was skating, he lost the flightiness and distractability that, he knew, made him the bane of his coach's existence. His attention narrowed down to the circle of ice at his feet, his own body and its motion. The spotlights came up in his mind, and everything else in the world faded into the darkness beyond.

It was a day for it. A blizzard had blown in from the Gulf of Finland, forecast to bring over 30 centimeters of snow by morning. The wind battered against the big floor-to-ceiling windows of the rink, through which nothing was visible but the whiteness of swirling, driven snow.

Victor threw himself into his step sequences, imagining himself sixteen again. He had skated, cliched though it might seem now, to 'Winter' from Vivaldi's _Four Seasons_ , with his long silver hair floating around his head. ( _If you insist on keeping it long,_ Yakov had said, _at least you can take advantage of it._ ) He summoned up the sense memory, imagined his hair flying as he turned, the expectant hush of the audience, followed by the murmurs and exclamations and the swell of applause. Just as it had been, as it would be again.

For a moment he took the shouts around him as part of his daydream. Then he realised that they were real, and they were not meant for him.

"Look at that!" 

"Our kitten!" 

"Yura!" 

"A quad axel!"

Yuri, gliding to a halt on the ice, was shaking his clasped hands above his head. For the first time since the Grand Prix Final, he beamed from ear to ear. 

"Did you see that? Did you see _that_! I hope one of you losers got a video."

"He wants to send it to Otabek," singsonged Mila.

"Amazing!" shouted Victor, several beats too late, and applauded in a rink fallen suddenly silent.

Everyone had turned to look at him. Yuri crossed his arms, raised his chin, as if daring Victor to say just the wrong thing.

"Beautiful," said Victor. "I couldn't have done it better."

This was, as it turned out, precisely that wrong thing. He could not have calculated its wrongness more precisely if he had tried. Yuri spat out an angry, choking sound and skated off with rapid backwards crossovers. He was winding up for another big jump.

Yakov held up his hands, too late. "Yura, Yura, just..."

Yuri jumped. It was tilted crazily in the air, doomed from the start. When he came down, the blade of his landing leg never got purchase on the ice. He fell sprawled across the ice like a thrown ragdoll, thin limbs flying.

After an unbearable pause, a moment of caught breath, he raised his head and looked at Victor with narrowed eyes. "Stop fucking staring at me! I'm fine. Jesus Christ."

"I got _that_ one," said Mila, lowering her phone.

Yuuri plucked at Victor's elbow. "What did you say to him?"

Victor had forgotten that they were speaking in Russian. He had forgotten that Yuuri was on the ice at all.

"I told him that it was beautiful," said Victor quietly, in English. "And I meant it."

Yuuri laid a hand unobtrusively at Victor's elbow; one could not tell whether it was meant to express faith or consolation. "You can land a quad axel."

Victor thought there must have been something in his face as he looked at Yurio, some wistfulness perhaps, though he could have sworn that he felt only pride and admiration.

"Of course I can, you've seen me. Never in competition, though. There would have been no point."

 _But Yurio will try it in competition,_ he thought, gripped with a sudden shiver that was half selfish joy and half cold dread. _Yakov won't be able to stop him. Which means that I'll need to do it too._

A decade ago, as the young upstart, he had learned to land the quad toe loop and salchow just as he had learned any other jump, because he was seventeen. It had never occurred to him to do otherwise. Over the following years he had added the flip and the loop and the lutz to his arsenal – with much the same emotions, he imagined, as the soldiers of the First World War had welcomed the tank and the biplane.

If anyone had been responsible for the quad arms race, it was Victor Nikiforov. Any sporting commentator, or even marginally informed follower of figure skating, could tell you that. Sport was about surprise, about pushing yourself – and your competitors – to the limit. 

And now it was time to start again. _You must be able to die and be reborn,_ he remembered Lilia saying. _As many times as necessary._ Something like that; it had been years.

His third try at the quad axel, Yurio underrotated and two-footed – but landed.

***

That evening in the locker room, as Victor was dressing his blisters and re-wrapping his left knee, he felt Yuri's eyes on him. This was odd; usually Yuri was as skittish and solitary as a cat, wrapping himself in a towel immediately after his shower and doing his grooming in his own time. He never stayed to make conversation.

"This will be your body in ten years!" said Victor cheerfully. "Prepare yourself now."

"Disgusting."

Victor glanced downwards and made a mental note to wax again soon.

"Old age is not a joy," he said, using sententious tones to make the most of the aphorism, "but death is not a gain."

Yuri leaned on his elbow against one of the lockers, the arch of his thin young back instinctive and arrogant, belying the bruises that spread across his skin. "Shut up. I want to talk to you. Are you guys going to do the quad axel?"

 _In competition_ was assumed. And he spoke as if Victor and Yuuri were all but inseperable from one another, even as competitors. Victor found it oddly charming.

"That would be telling, wouldn't it?"

"You'd better make sure Katsudon doesn't try it. He'll fall on his fat ass in front of everyone. The same goes for you. You're not as good as you think you are. Not anymore."

For emphasis Yuri jabbed one battered big toe against the tiled floor.

Victor got to his feet, leaving his towel behind, and drew himself to his full height. It half seemed unfair, a childish gesture from a grown man to a boy. But Yuri did not respond to mature argument.

"Are you trying to intimidate me, kitten?" said Victor. "Again? How charming."

Yuri scoffed. "That living legend act will only work as long as you keep winning."

"Then I'd better keep winning, hadn't I?"

"I don't want you to embarrass yourself," said Yuri. "Or hurt yourself. That's all."

A touching message of support from his second-biggest fan. The worst thing about it was that Yuri's words sounded sincere.

 _I have already hurt myself,_ thought Victor. _I will hurt myself again. This is inevitable. Are you still so young that you don't understand this?_

"What happened?" asked Georgi, coming into the locker room with his skates slung over his shoulder. "What did I miss? Who's embarrassed?"

"Nothing," said Yuri.

"Not me," said Victor, sitting down again to finish wrapping his knee. "I'm going home now."

On his way out of the locker room, Georgi caught him by the shoulder. "Life is suffering," he said confidentially.

It was the most sympathetic thing that anyone had said to Victor all day.

***

Since the afternoon the blizzard had only deepened. Outside nothing was visible beyond the dark and the swirling snow. Yuuri pushed open the glass outer door of the rink, only to let it immediately fall closed again. A small drift of powdery snow blew in around his feet, settling on the textured carpet of the vestibule. He laughed. 

Victor, behind Yuuri, zipped up his Moncler. "I told you I would call a car. It will only take a few minutes."

Last winter he'd had a regular booking. He had walked when he felt like it. He had not often felt like it.

"No," insisted Yuuri, who mysteriously had retained some energy after a long day of practice. "I want to see the snow."

"Can you see it from the tram? It will be very windy on the bridge. And the snow will be here all winter."

Yuuri took him by the hand and pulled him out into the maelstrom. Victor could hardly say no.

Together, hand in hand, they fought their way across the bridge. The lights of Vasilyevsky Island ahead were hidden by the storm. The snow stung bitterly against their faces, tiny crystals of ice whipped to a cutting speed by the wind. They dragged their feet through the snowdrifts, already spilling over the tops of their boots.

"You came to me in the snow," said Yuuri, his words blown towards Victor and then out across the icy expanse of the Neva.

"Yes, I did," said Victor, finding himself nostalgic already for the cherry blossoms and hot springs in Hasetsu.

Even the apartment was cold, despite the double-glazing and the new under-floor heating, and it seemed empty with Makkachin still back in Japan. Victor left Yuuri to get himself dinner and sunk himself into a deep, hot bath filled with a generous helping of Epsom salts. He lay back with a pleasant feeling of vacancy and gazed out the high window at the blankness beyond. Wind battered at the building, sending little draughts swirling down around Victor's shoulders. He sunk deeper into the water. There was no view of the lights across the river tonight; he could not even see the street below. Thus he had not bothered to close the shutters. If there were any devoted fans outside, waiting for a view of the great Victor Nikiforov, then they were welcome to it. He smiled at the thought.

A tap at the door. Yuuri. "I'm going to bed now."

"Come in if you want."

It was a large tub, but not quite large enough to fit two for a comfortable soak. 

"I'll wait for you in bed," said Yuuri. 

Under the howl of the wind, Victor could hear footsteps padding down the hall to the room next door. Yuuri's words had not been a statement of fact, nor a light hint. They were about as direct as he got. It was a shame that there was no imperative in English. _Victor Nikiforov, in bed, now._ If Victor had been wearing a tie, Yuuri would have been leading him by it by now. 

Victor shivered at the thought. Then he got to his feet, wincing slightly at the aches that the hot water had not entirely eased away. He let out the bathwater, got his bathrobe from the coat rack, and took a couple of aspirin. It was time to join his lover.

Even under the eiderdown duvet, the sheets were cold. Yuuri had curled himself on his side, facing the wall, a tight and selfish knot of heat. Victor sighed and reached to turn out the lights.

"Leave it on," came a firm voice from under the duvet.

Victor left them on. He lay down on his back and waited expectantly, stretching his left leg a little. He did not have to wait long. 

Yuuri rolled over on top of him. "You hardly looked at me on the rink today," he breathed.

Tomorrow this might become a complaint, a serious one. Tomorrow, if they could find a minute to themselves, they might actually have to talk about it. Tonight it was the best sort of foreplay.

"What a pathetic excuse for a coach I am," Victor agreed. It was somewhat of a relief to say it out loud, even in the ritual submission of the bedroom. He suspected that Yuuri knew it as well as Yakov – had known it for a while now, and had forgiven him even so, with one feather-light touch to the crown of the head. "If only there were something else that I was the slightest bit good at..."

Yuuri studied Victor at close range, their noses almost touching, a frown of concentration furrowing his forehead. "I hear you're not bad on the ice."

"I don't know if I can get out of bed again."

"Then you'll just have to watch me here."

Victor licked lips gone suddenly dry. "That can be arranged."

What luck. Here he lay, exhausted and only days short of his twenty-eighth birthday, every muscle and joint aching, covered in new bruises, his stomach empty as a drum. His blisters were probably bleeding onto the sheets again. 

And yet here, leaning over him, his eyes hungry with want, was the one of the most beautiful men in the world. Yuuri was at the peak of his physical condition, tempered like a blade, lean muscle outlined under his smooth skin. His face was haloed by a dozen ceiling lights. He glowed like a saint painted on the dome of a church.

Victor reached out to draw one finger along the flat of Yuuri's breastbone. "Whatever you want, my darling. I'm yours."

Yuuri was already kissing him, rubbing against him, a slow repetitive motion that seemed to generate heat through friction, the slide of skin against skin. Yuuri was as warm as a furnace. Even the slight pressure of his body left Victor aching. His bruised skin protested and yet he longed for more, for Yuuri in his entirety.

His mind longed for Yuuri, at least. His body remained stubbornly sluggish, unwilling to be roused. Yuuri's cock was hard against his thigh, and he...

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," said Yuuri, looking down and bobbing his head in profuse, horrified apology. "I thought you – "

"I do," said Victor. _Want it._ "Only – "

He reached in between them, knuckle grazing sweetly against Yuuri's sweat-damp navel, to take himself in hand. For inspiration he rifled his memories, a quick, urgent scatter of arousal: _on my knees, kissing his skate, the performance has started already, my tie, all the world knows, the bull and the matador, his thighs around that pole, Eros, Eros, Eros, be my coach Victor._ And then, in desperation: _skinnydipping with Chris; Lyuba on the balcony; the hockey players, Torino 2006._

There was no need for him to feel guilt over the disloyalty of his imagination; none of it made the slightest bit of difference. His body, which had been performing hard service since seven that morning, had nothing left to give.

Victor shook his head. "No. I think not tonight. I'm sorry."

Yuuri began to roll off him, head bowed and body gone slack as if in defeat. Victor caught him by the elbows, but Yuuri did not meet his gaze. "Yuuri. You were going to fuck me, weren't you? Do you want to? You still can."

Yuuri flushed to the tips of his ears. Victor could not understand how he was capable of doing the things he did in bed – forward, shameless, irresistable – and yet apparently incapable of admitting to them before or afterwards.

"No!" said Yuuri. "No! I mean, yes, but I... Not if... Oh god, you don't actually think I could enjoy it, if you weren't enjoying it too?"

Before his eyes Yuuri was spiralling down into a black hole of shame and self-doubt. Victor could almost read the internal monologue in his dark, expressive eyes. _He's not attracted to me. Maybe he never was, not really. Maybe things are different now we're in St Petersburg, maybe he's gotten bored with me. I want him all the time, maybe I shouldn't want it this much, maybe there's something wrong with me..._

"Please fuck me, Yuuri," said Victor urgently, interrupting the imagined Yuuri in his mind. "I want you to fuck me." For good measure he said it in Russian, which always seemed more imperative than English. "Еби меня, Юрий."

Was this a persuasive argument? Was he just babbling to cover his own embarrassment? Did it sound like he was pleading? Maybe pleading was good; Yuuri sometimes responded to pleading. He could just offer to suck Yuuri off, it would be easier, but it also seemed like admitting defeat. Victor did not believe in defeat.

"I want you to fuck me," he added, in case the basic message was unclear.

"You don't," insisted Yuuri.

"Desire is one thing," said Victor. "But the body can't always perform what we desire. You understand, don't you?"

"Of course I understand that. I – of course, every day. On the rink. That's – my life."

Victor told himself that he would be gentler the next time Yuuri failed to master his choreography on the first attempt.

"Both of us. So take pity on your ancient Vitya, who's not a god, but only a man."

Yuuri gasped and kissed him. After that there was not much more that needed saying. Yuuri was as gentle as he could possibly be, and Victor ached nonetheless, and it was glorious.

Afterwards, dozing, Victor stroked Yuuri's thick hair. "Such stamina."

Outside the wind howled tirelessly.

***

"Victor," said Yuuri, his eyes shining with resolve, "please teach me to do a quadruple axel."

"Let me think," said Victor.

Because he was on the ice, he skated off backwards; there was no point in thinking about skating when he could be doing it. _Yes,_ he imagined himself saying, _it's a matter of speed, thinking about the power from your skating leg, getting the lift, the rotation..._ It all sounded very good and very convincing, and for this reason he decided to take his own advice.

He jumped, got the height, got _almost_ the full four rotations, tripped on a rough patch of ice (surely that was what it was) and landed on his ass.

"Not like that," he said with a laugh, leaning forward on his knees to catch his breath. His hair fell in his face. "Not at all like that."

Yuuri did not ask Victor whether he was all right; he had more faith than that. Victor appreciated it. He also appreciated the heavy sweatpants that he was wearing, which had cushioned the impact a little. Only a little. He would be feeling it in the morning.

He got to his feet. "I'll try it again."

Yuuri nodded, his gaze intent. Even now, he looked at Victor as though he were on the world stage delivering a gold-medal-winning performance, and not flubbing jumps on his home rink with messy hair and an old Metallurg Magnitogorsk T-shirt.

His second attempt succeeded, just. At his current weight it took the maximum power he could produce to get the height the jump required, and even a successful landing jarred the length of his spine with its impact. But Victor smiled nonetheless; he had learnt early on that he must always smile.

"More like that," he said, lifting his free leg into an arabesque.

He could not help but look to the side of the rink, where Yakov was standing, coaching Anya and her partner. Had Yakov seen the jump? Surely he must have. But his face was hidden by the brim of his hat and it was impossible to tell.

"Are you coaching, Vitya? Or practicing? I can't tell the difference."

"Demonstrating," said Victor. 

So Yakov must have seen. That made three quad axels to Victor this week, since Yurio had landed his two. Not that Victor was keeping score. It was no surprise that Yurio, for the moment still smaller and lighter, had managed to learn the jump despite his lack of experience. But experience and strength still told. For now. For now.

"It's very good," said Yuuri. "But will you explain?"

To explain. Yes, that was why Victor had attempted the quad in the first place. Now he wanted to continue and see whether he could land another. It would be a shame to sacrifice the chance, if he were on a roll. 

But now he was coaching, and the truth was that it didn't matter whether or not he could do a quad axel. After all, Yakov taught jumps that he couldn't land now, that he had never landed, that he had never considered attempting even in those heady days when he was the great hope of the Soviet Union. _Bronze, 1980, Lake Placid._ Not so much as a quad toe loop required.

Victor skated over to Yuuri. "It's... It's an instinct. Do you remember when you turned your double into a triple? It isn't something you can put into words."

Understandably Yuuri looked annoyed. He was not wearing his glasses, but this frown was not due to short-sightedness. "Maybe for you it's an instinct, Victor. Not for me. I'm not a god of figure skating."

"Did that jump look like it was performed by a god?"

"Yes!" said Yuuri.

After that Victor could not help but throw his arms around him. He kissed Yuuri, their skates sliding together. On the ice they had to cling so that the rebound didn't push them apart. They clung.

"Vitya," said Yakov, in Russian, "if you are seducing my athlete into attempting a quadruple axel without my consent and without my supervision, I will break both your legs. And I will laugh while I'm doing it."

Victor replied in Russian: "Yakov, must you always assume that I'm planning something?" 

Yuuri looked up at Victor with a worried face. "Does he mind that we're... you know... on the ice?"

"Of course not." Victor pressed a kiss to the bridge of Yuuri's nose, taking advantage of the lack of glasses. "He's an old romantic really. Remind me to tell you the story of how he seduced Lilia."

"You were talking to me about my quad axel," Yuuri persisted. He was as focused as a laser beam. There was no distracting him. "I asked you to teach me."

"I was thinking maybe it's better to focus on the jumps that you have now. With a consistent quad flip in the second half of your program..."

Yuuri flushed with suppressed anger, his lips pressed into a thin line. "I need a quadruple axel."

"Not to win Nationals. Not to win Four Continents either."

"If I'm going to beat Yurio at Worlds. If I'm going to beat..."

Yuuri stumbled to a halt, as if he had only just realised what he was saying. His flush had deepened to scarlet, spreading up to the roots of his hair, down to the hollow of his neck. His mouth stayed open, gaping with surprise at his own audacity.

"If you're going to beat me?" 

He could have delivered the line in so many ways. Had delivered it, to so many competitors over so many years. Menacing, charming, ironic, seductive, amused, icy, disbelieving. With Yuuri none of that was necessary: he just said it, a simple question.

"JJ!" said Yuuri wildly, waving his hands. "I meant JJ!"

Victor put his hands on his hips. " _Me_. You _should_ be thinking about how you can beat me. And as your coach, so should I. Yuuri, how can we defeat the renowned Victor Nikiforov?"

"No, please Victor, this isn't..."

Pondering, Victor put a finger to his lips. This was the most interesting question he had asked himself in a while. Interesting, different, surprising. He should have been thinking this way from the start.

"He's old, he's tired, he's nursing old injuries, he's preoccupied with proving that he's still relevant. He's not just going to bring everything he has – he'll bring more than he has. He's never landed a quad axel in competition, he can't land it reliably in practice, but he'll try it anyway. Because if he can't bring the audience something new, he's finished. Because he can't imagine failing. Hubris is a fatal flaw, you know."

Yuuri shook his head slowly, his eyes wide. "Victor – that's not you."

"Isn't it?" said Victor.

"Maybe last year that's how you felt, I don't know. But you're nothing like that now!"

Another surprising thought. Victor blinked. He ran one hand thoughtfully through his fringe, his gloved fingers clumsy against the fine strands of hair. Small crystals of ice clung to them, the remnants of his fall; he tossed his head, trying to shake them off. 

He had never been prone to introspection. It did not help with his skating, and it was not the sort of thing that Yakov encouraged. Perhaps he had outgrown his own image of himself and never even noticed.

"You shouldn't talk about yourself like that," insisted Yuuri.

"I'm talking about your competitor." Victor paused. "I will definitely try to land the quad axel in competition. I don't know whether I'll succeed. You shouldn't make your plans assuming that I will. That's all."

Yuuri did not give up. There was something steely in him when he got like this, the steady gaze that drew Victor in. "You told me that you wanted to see me land a quadruple flip with a +3 GOE. And I did it! Don't you want to see me land the quad axel too?"

"Yes! I do! But I don't think you can."

 _Or am I thinking of myself?_ wondered Victor.

Once upon a time saying something this to Yuuri would have shattered his heart like glass. Now he just looked at Victor as though Victor, and not he, had failed. "You're meant to believe in me, Victor."

This was getting tiresome. Talking had only ever taken them so far. Victor put his arm around Yuuri's waist, leaning in to smell the familar scent of sweat and damp polyester and – was that his own cologne? He rather thought it was.

"Yuuri, I do believe in you. But you can't win by trying to turn yourself into a copy of the living legend Victor Nikiforov. I'm not even certain that I can do that anymore. You told me once that you didn't want me to be your father, or your brother, or your boyfriend... just myself. No one had ever said that to me before. And now I'll say it to you. Don't try to win by being me. You're more than that. Be yourself – and triumph."

"Yes," breathed Yuuri. "I'll do my best. But..."

"Ask Yakov about the quad axel. He can be objective about this; I can't."

Perhaps Victor was finally getting the hang of inspirational speeches. Or perhaps it was the fact that he slid his hand beneath Yuuri's warmup jacket to caress the warm sliver of skin at the edge of his waistband. 

Either way, it worked. Yuuri nodded.

"Enough talking, it's time to skate. I want to see you land three quad flips before you leave the ice. And I will not accept underrotation." Victor clapped his hands. "Go, your coach commands you!"

Yuuri skated off. Across the rink, Yakov nodded with a grudging respect. 

_You see,_ thought Victor. _I'm not such a bad coach after all._

***

Victor inhaled sharply, surpressing an exclamation of pain as he sat down on the locker room bench to take off his skates. Bruised coccyx, no doubt. He had come down hard after that first failed quad axel. There was another stake in the coffin of his already shaky sex life.

There was only one man who could give him the irreverent sympathy that he deserved. Victor pulled out his phone to message Chris. After a moment's thought he changed the keyboard to English; it wouldn't have the same resonance in French. 

He quickly typed: **Pounded in the butt by my own quad axel**

No more than five seconds passed before Chris replied, also in English: **!!! Pics or it didn't happen**

**The butt or the axel?!**

**Both**

And then, after a pause: **Je me sens vieux**

 **Moi aussi** , typed Victor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • In reality, figure skaters are a long way from bringing a quadruple axel to competition. But given Victor's canonical command of all the other quads, there's really nowhere else to go with the 'quad arms race.' So I went there.  
> • Of course Victor knows about Chuck Tingle.  
> • Chris and Victor's exchange: "I feel old." "Me too."


	3. Chapter 3

_Russian Nationals_

Georgi Popovich skated Carabosse like a man possessed, and he landed all of his jumps cleanly. _Tales of a Sleeping Prince_ was even better. It was as if he were waking himself from a decade-long slumber, realising that he finally had the chance to grasp at a title that Victor had so long denied him.

Victor, entering the free program in third, was leaving no hostages to fortune. As far as anyone knew, his program contained no axels other than triples; he had omitted the quad from his warm-up session. In fact he had omitted almost everything from his warm-up session, for once taking Yakov's advice.

His knee was worse. For years the old injury had lain dormant, seemingly healed, but two weeks of sudden, hard training – while above his competition weight, thought Victor ruefully – had obviously put new stresses on the still-weakened joint. So far it was serving him faithfully; it had not buckled yet. Pushing his body beyond his limits was something he did every time he skated. The only question was knowing when it was time to call a halt.

Not today.

Victor skated onto the ice, hearing once again the full-throated roar of a crowd that was meant for him and him alone. He had missed it; until this moment he had not realised how much. He smiled and waved in acknowledgement, taking one turn of the rink while the seconds ticked down towards that glorious moment that would transform him from a celebrity back into a competitor.

Taking his starting pose, he stretched his left leg briefly. No doubt the commentators would notice and remark. He didn't care. The music had begun.

Victor's mind always went blank when he skated. Other competitors might think of their programs, of their coaches watching on the sidelines, of their scores and their standings and their dreams, but for Victor there was none of that. Only the ice. If something demanded thought during a program, it was a sign that he had fallen short.

Quad lutz, three minutes into the program, never his favourite jump. He landed badly, with a scratchy toe, felt his knee scream a protest, and put a hand down. _Shit._

One jump left: a triple axel. His body was already crying for oxygen, chest heaving, lactic acid burning in every muscle. He could still attempt the quad. He might land it, even this late in the program, a miracle on the wing. He might fall; if he won credit for the jump, then he was not afraid to fall. He might collapse, destroy his knee in the attempt. But did that matter to Victor Nikiforov? Did he care if he destroyed himself?

 _That's not you, Victor,_ he seemed to hear Yuuri saying. _Not anymore._

Victor could do nothing but trust to his body's instinct. With a prickling of foreboding at the back of his neck, he jumped.

Triple axel. Ordinary, uninspired, unsurprising. Long entry phase. -1 GOE.

In the end he fell short of Georgi's combined score by three points.

"Sloppy," said Yakov, peering at the final score in disapproval. "Substandard. You can't skate at Euros like that."

Victor hugged Yakov hard, in no doubt that the old man was pleased. "I won't skate like that at Euros. I promise."

Still gasping for breath after his skate, he could feel a giddy delight bubbling up in his chest, a feeling that his fifth World Championship win had never inspired. His knee didn't even hurt anymore. He made a heart sign for the cameras, and blew kiss after kiss to a man who was watching with Makkachin by the light of a laptop in Hasetsu, until the video feed cut away and Yuri Plisetsky took the ice.

Yuri went into his free skate as tightly strung as he had been at the Grand Prix Final. Lacking any of the perspective of maturity, he stepped out onto the rink as if he were skating in the Olympics and not merely another instalment of Russian nationals, albeit his first nationals as a senior.

Victor watched Yuri's routine with bated breath, peering through a parting in his fringe. His hands clenched in the pockets of his warmup jacket as he awaited the moment of truth. Would Yuri attempt the quadruple axel?

Yuri telegraphed his intention from a mile off, every muscle tensing with painful anticipation as he approached the takeoff point. He was going for it. He launched himself into the air, spun ( _one, two, three, and..._ ), landed with a painful underrotation. Even Victor would have found the landing impossible to save. 

Yuri fell, sliding into the wall of the rink with such momentum that you could hear the _thump_ from the stands. A moment later he scrambled to his feet and skated off at high speed, chasing after the music and his choreography. A single hot pink feather from his costume remained on the ice. Victor held his breath.

Scoring took an eternity. The judges' heads bent over their computer screens as they considered the rotation of the quadruple axel. In the end they were not merciful to Yuri: it was downgraded to a triple. A triple on which he had fallen.

Watching Yuri biting his lip in the kiss and cry, Victor wondered how the judges would have felt if it had been Victor Nikiforov who attempted the world's first quadruple axel in competition. He suspected – but could never say this to anyone other than Yuuri or Yakov – that the decision might have been different. There was nothing that he could do about it, though. The judges gave and the judges took away, as Yakov had said firmly to him after Vancouver. Blessed be the names of the judges.

It meant that Yuri ceded Victor the silver by a good margin. And for the first time in his career – and, one suspected, the last – Georgi Popovich had won gold at Russian nationals.

As the realisation struck him, Georgi began to sob, his mascara running everywhere. Victor embraced him, kissed him on both cheeks, smelling salt and sweat and the terrible body spray that Georgi always wore.

"Congratulations, Gosha. You deserved it."

"Maybe now," said Georgi, "maybe now Anya will–"

But Victor thought that Anya probably was too busy mourning her own losses. Her new relationship had clearly kept her mind off of her training; she and her partner had finished seventh and would not get within a hundred kilometers of the European championships.

Georgi had not yet released Victor. He was clasping him hard, his hands hot through the thin mesh of Victor's costume. _He'd better not be coming on to me now,_ thought Victor. _He's had twelve years to discover situational homosexuality, this isn't Yakov's summer camp, that ship has sailed. Not that I would have, even then._ But no, Georgi was still talking about Anya.

"Love inspires your Yuuri," he wept. "But that's not for us, we're Russians. It's suffering and heartbreak that ennobles our souls."

"Yes, Dostoyevsky," said Victor, slapping Georgi heartily on the back. "But maybe tonight you should try enjoying yourself for a change."

Georgi finally broke off with a truly monumental sniffle, muttered something indistinct that sounded like – but could not have been – _but Chris isn't here_ , and allowed Yakov to lead him firmly away.

***

After the podium, they posed together on the rink for pictures.

"I'm going to land it next time," said Yuri, fingering the ribbon of his bronze medal as if he couldn't wait to rip it off his neck. "I'll crush you at Euros."

"Delightful. If you prove it to me in practice, I might be worried enough to bring my own quad axel."

Yuri mouthed something that might, deniably, have been _fuck you, old man_. It was impossible to be certain. Clearly Lilia's chaperonage had had some sort of effect.

Victor threw his arm around Yuri's shoulder, smiled for the cameras, leaned down to kiss his rinkmate's cheek with sweet condescension. _I wonder how much longer I'll be able to get away with that? Perhaps I should stop. He's gotten taller, hasn't he?_

"Get _off_ me," said Yuri, shoving at his side with a distinct lack of conviction. "You're getting your lip gloss all over my cheek. You're not as cute as you think you are. Can't you shake hands like a normal person?"

"I'm not a normal person. I'm Victor Nikiforov."

But perhaps he had a point. Victor released Yuri and extended his hand instead. One competitor to another. Yuri nodded – a quick, approving jerk of the chin, as if this were the first sensible thing that Victor had done in a long time. Amidst a flurry of flashbulbs, he took Victor's hand and shook it.

That was the picture that ended up in the papers the following day, though Victor was not there to see them. 

_National skating championships: Victor Nikiforov, Russia's hero, congratulates newcomer Yuri Plisetsky on his bronze medal. Nikiforov, nine-time winner of the men's national championships, won silver yesterday. He recently returned to the ice after taking an eight-month break from skating._

***

Even before they got out of the showers, someone had updated Yuri's Wikipedia profile: _the first man to attempt a quadruple axel in competition._ Yuri thrust his phone wordlessly into Victor's hands while Victor was frowning into a smudgy mirror, attempting to style his damp hair and put on a bit of foundation.

"So you are," said Victor. He was distracted; behind him, Georgi, newly cleansed of his stage makeup, was frowning at his own reflection and reapplying more eyeliner than was good for him. "Did you edit the article yourself?"

"Idiot," spat Yuri. "I'll be the first to land one too."

Victor thought he sounded as though he were trying to convince himself. How many times had he said it already?

Yuri said it again at the press conference afterwards. Sitting next to Georgi and squinting into the television lights, his face innocent of makeup, he looked even younger than his age. Squirming under the eagle gaze of Lilia Baranovskaya, he sounded older. Or at least more meticulously rehearsed.

"I'm looking forward to the European Championships. I'll show that I'm capable of landing a quadruple axel in competition, and that now I'm the top Russian figure skater. I don't consider myself the next Victor Nikiforov. I'm the only Yuri Plisetsky."

These cliches he delivered with a level, determined tone, in the lowest compass of his newly-broken voice. He sounded like a man forced at gunpoint to record a hostage video, while at the same time believing passionately in the cause that it espoused. _Stockholm syndrome_ , thought Victor.

The press ate it up. They paid little attention to Georgi. Yuri was the man of the future – and Victor, strangely enough, was the man of the future as well.

"Will you be prepared for the European Championships?" was the question on everyone's lips. 

"Of course I'll be prepared." Victor allowed his fringe to fall modestly across his eyes. "Though it may be presumptuous of me, I like to think that no one is better placed than I to follow in the illustrious footsteps of Victor Nikiforov."

A ripple of laughter passed through the hall. Perfect. Yuri leaned backwards and scowled at him around Georgi's back. A warning hiss escaped Lilia's thin lips.

"Although I'm looking forward to Worlds even more," Victor continued, "because it will mean the chance to compete against Katsuki Yuuri. He's the most exciting, most surprising skater on the ice today. I hope you'll watch."

"We've heard that you're engaged to Katsuki Yuuri. Is it true?"

One would have thought that the answer was clear by now. Yuuri had been asked the same question at the press conference in Barcelona, and in response had sweetly murmured that he wanted to stay with Victor forever. Perhaps that had not been unambiguous enough. Perhaps the press didn't follow Victor's Instagram, which had featured his ring a hundred times since then, with a hundred different backdrops. Or perhaps they just wanted a good quote in Russian. 

Victor hardly minded reiterating. He held up his right hand, turning it slightly so that the ring caught the light to best effect. "If it's not true, then he has something to answer for. I certainly thought this was an engagement ring when he put it on my finger. We'll get married once he wins gold at Worlds." He paused, searching out the ISU livestream camera. "Shall we make certain? I'm sure he's watching this. Yuuri, my life and love, will you marry me?"

Even from the hardened denizens of the press, there was scattered applause at that. Lilia shot an impenetrable glance at Yakov, nodded with – was that _approval_? A hollow thudding sound came from the other end of the table, where Yuri's forehead was hitting the wood, hard.

Victor would gladly have answered endless questions about his engagement, but sports journalists had other preoccupations. "Do you really think he can beat you at Worlds?"

His grin might have split his face. "Of course he can!"

"Have you found it difficult making a comeback after nearly a year off the ice?"

Victor considered. "I would offer to show you the state of my feet, but people tend to faint when I do that."

More laughter. Yakov covered his eyes with one hand.

"Of course it was difficult," Victor added. "I never want to find it easy. Only the grave is easy; I'm not ready for the grave."

 _Victor Nikiforov is dead,_ Yuri had said, by the sea in Barcelona. Yet he had been speaking to a man resurrected on the third day, after his descent into hell.

"And your knee?"

"Nothing that a few days of rest won't cure."

"How does it feel to have lost at Russian nationals for the first time since you were eighteen?"

"Like a challenge," said Victor. He smiled, showing his teeth.

"Yuri Plisetsky plans to land a quadruple axel at the European Championships. Do you intend to take up that challenge?"

 _Always leave them wanting more_ was one of the main tenets of Victor's media strategy. Such as it was. He put his hands flat on the table and stood up, blinking in a sudden storm of flashbulbs.

"If you'll excuse me now, I have a flight to catch."

"I'll crush him!" shouted Yuri, _ad libbing_.

As Victor was making his way to the door, carefully skirting the camera bags and tripods and heavy power cables, his phone pinged with a new message. He extracted it from his jacket pocket and gazed, misty-eyed, at the three words glowing on his lock screen.

**Yes! I will.**

He looked towards the dais, but Georgi was still holding forth on his philosophy – Dostoyevsky's philosophy – of the necessity of suffering, and it seemed churlish to interrupt.

"He said yes," said Victor quietly to the correspondent from _Sports Illustrated_ , who would do nothing whatsoever with the news. "He'll marry me."

Then he left for Japanese nationals.

***

Nearly a twenty-four hour journey from Chelyabinsk to Osaka. Three hours by chauffeured car through forests of birch and pine to Ekaterinburg; a Ural Airlines flight to Beijing; Japan Airlines to Haneda; a Shinkansen train from there. Victor was used to travel. He watched terrible films, and dozed, and drank champagne, ate grilled chicken breast and the fruit plate, and iced his knee with ice renewed regularly by the stewardesses. His responsibilities were slight. On the Ural Airlines flight the crew recognised him, which went some way towards easing the indignities of traveling with a regional airline; in gratitude he offered selfies and autographs and recorded a personal greeting for the first officer's skating-mad cousin in Tyumen. On Japan Airlines he was anonymous, but had platinum status, and a certain clinging aura of fame (or perhaps it was the Louis Vuitton luggage) ensured that the service was good.

It was perhaps not the birthday he would have chosen, but his birthday had meant Nationals for almost as long as he could remember. And this year he was expecting a particular gift.

By the time he made it to Osaka, there was only time to check into his hotel, shower, change, and leave for the rink. When he arrived backstage, the competitors were already warming up. Yuuri paced back and forth in his baggy jacket, windmilling his arms with an intensity that Victor had come to recognise as narrowly-suppressed hysteria.

 _What was I thinking?_ he asked himself. _How could I think it made sense to leave him alone at a time like this? Maybe Yakov was right about trying to do both. And I dared to call Yuuri selfish._

"Yuuri!" he said, in a voice loud enough to cut through the noise of his headphones.

Every other skater in the room jerked their heads up to look at Victor. They stared – quite unabashedly, he thought. A moment later Yuuri looked up too, but didn't quite meet Victor's gaze.

"You're here," he said simply.

"I told you I would be."

And yet his presence hardly seemed to calm Yuuri's nerves. He wished he had been there in time to do Yuuri's hair and makeup, a small ritual that helped to soothe both of them, but there was no helping it.

As Yuuri went about his warm-up routine he kept casting sidelong glances in Victor's direction, flushing, looking away again. Nerves, but not Yuuri's usual brand of nerves. Victor was left, once again, at a loss. What on earth was he meant to do? What on earth did a good coach say at a time like this?

Finally he caught Yuuri by his narrow hips, the costume slippery against his fingers. "What is it, Yuuri? Tell me."

"Nothing," said Yuuri stolidly.

Obviously not nothing. He took out Yuuri's headphones. "Am I going to have to threaten to kiss you again?"

Yuuri pressed his lips together, looking for a moment as though he were going to refuse to say anything at all. Then suddenly he spit out: "I'm sorry, Victor! I'm so sorry! And it's your birthday too!"

All became clear. Victor laughed in relief. "The silver? Georgi?"

Yuuri nodded.

"No need for sympathy. I lost to him once at Juniors, when I was fourteen. That was my ugly duckling season; I'd just grown eight centimeters. Then it mattered. Now? I wish him the best."

"I was so worried," said Yuuri. "And I didn't know what to say."

"Didn't the press conference help? I know you watched it."

"Sometimes you smile, but you don't mean it. And you know I don't understand much Russian."

"You understood the important part." 

Yuuri's eyes slipped down to the ring on Victor's finger. He mustered a slight smile, but a real one.

"In reality," said Victor, "I feel for Georgi. He thinks this will get him Anya back. It won't."

"If she needs a gold medal to persuade her to stay with him, then she doesn't deserve him anyway."

Victor stared at Yuuri for a moment, then caught him in his arms. His lips rested against Yuuri's freshly gelled hair. "Yuuri, I never really meant..." 

"I know!" said Yuuri fiercely. "Of course I know, Victor."

"Then go out and win me a gold. Just because I want to kiss it."

***

Yuuri won gold. The result was never in doubt. No quadruple axel was required.

After the ceremony, Victor walked out onto the rink, the ice feeling strange against the soles of his Italian leather shoes. Yuuri was still standing on the podium, doing his best to acknowledge the continued cheers from the audience. Kenjirou Minami, seeming miles below him on the lower step, was gazing at Yuuri with an expression so frankly worshipful that Victor could not help but chuckle.

_Is that what I look like when I look at him? I hope it is._

When Yuuri caught sight of Victor, his own face changed – from a solemn, set-jawed pride to an open, unguarded delight that brought tears to Victor's eyes. Yuuri held his arms out to Victor, then thought better of it, and fumbled instead to hold up his medal.

One must always think first of the press. Victor stood on the ice below the podium, Yuuri's hand resting on his shoulder, and smiled sweetly for the photographers. He took his own silver medal from where he'd carefully tucked it in a jacket pocket – preparing for just this moment – and hung it around his neck. Now this would be a photo. He wondered how many minutes would elapse before Phichit had it on Instagram.

Warm fingers brushed his cheek. Yuuri was clearing his throat. Victor looked back, over his shoulder.

"I got you a birthday present," said Yuuri. "Do you like it?"

Victor's breath caught. He tipped his head upwards to redeem his pledge. A thousand camera flashes illuminated the breathless pause as Yuuri held the gold medal out to him.

_So which of them is right,_ Victor wondered in the space between, hearing his heartbeat like thunderous applause in his ears. _Yuuri or Georgi? What should we call what we have on the ice? Is it love or is it suffering, after all?_

But he was Victor Nikiforov. No one on earth could make him choose. For him it was both. There was no other way. 

Slowly, with Yuuri's hand resting warm against the nape of his neck, Victor leaned in to press his lips to the gold medal. It was shockingly cold, as if all the cruelty and beauty of the ice had been concentrated within its compass. As he pulled away again, he could see his breath misting on the smooth metal. 

So Victor Nikiforov was alive after all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • Dostoyevsky was the original emo. All credit where credit is due.
> 
> • Halrloprillalar put the idea of [Chris/Georgi](http://archiveofourown.org/series/595504) into my head. Now I can never get it out again.
> 
> • Finally, thank you to everyone who has shared their thoughts on this story, whether positive or negative. You've made me think more deeply about what I was trying to convey here, and hopefully the story is the better for it.


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